Platform Size Is More Important Than Quality For Online Success

by in Lifestyle on Dec 10th, 2022

Quality is overrated when it comes to making money online or writing a bestselling book. Instead, growing your platform size (your website and social media presence) as large as possible is the most important criteria.

We all know that bloggers can make a lot of money online. But after blogging consistently since 2009, there’s been an overemphasis on quality and an underemphasis on marketing.

Sure, Google keeps telling us that Expertise Authority Trustworthiness (EAT) matters. But after all these years, if EAT really matters, how can there be so many successful personal finance websites written by people who do not have finance backgrounds?

How can there be so many large websites with posts predominantly written by freelance writers with no firsthand experience?

The reason why is because the quality of content and the EAT of the author doesn’t matter as much as marketing and branding.

Read More

Are E-Courses A Scam? Be Careful Paying Lots Of Money For Online Courses

by in Lifestyle on Mar 10th, 2022

Given everything can now be learned online for free, are e-courses a scam? Depending on the price and the quality of the content, I say yes.

As content creators, one of the ways to make lots of money online is by offering an e-course. However, what if you are charging $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 for an e-course? That amount of money seems usurious.

A lot of e-course creators have said they are creating these courses to help people make more money, save more money, and start their businesses. However, if they really wanted to help people, why not charge a more affordable price instead?

Here’s one perspective about e-courses and whether they are a scam by someone who paid $3,888 for one. He regrets purchasing the e-course.

Read More

Take Advantage Of The Opportunity That Smacks You In The Face Every Day

by in Lifestyle on Dec 3rd, 2015

In 2008, I was just another fan of personal finance blogs. I loved following people’s journeys to achieving a particular net worth goal or paying down boatloads of debt they mistakenly gotten themselves into. Then shit really started hitting the fan in 2009 as the economy collapsed thanks to folks over leveraging themselves in the housing market.

Fight or flight kicked in as my net worth got crushed by around 35%. Maybe the drop was worse if I actually tried to sell some of my holdings. Nobody was buying anything. Since I was already an avid reader of everything finance and personal finance related, I realized something quite interesting. Read More

Why Bloggers Still Don’t Get Much Respect

by in Lifestyle on Jul 28th, 2015

For the past month I’ve been driving for Uber anywhere between 5 – 15 hours a week. It’s been a very insightful experience, learning about the different types of passengers, as well as the reaction I get when I tell them I’m a blogger. I encourage everybody, rich or poor, to work a minimum wage service job if they ever want to regain some appreciation for what they have!

Most people react with indifference when I tell them I’m a blogger, with nary a follow up question asking what I write about. For those who do ask, I tell them I write about everything personal finance related. Some find it interesting, while most kinda let out a gruff of acknowledgement before looking back down on their iPhones.

The most common question I get is, “Can you actually make money blogging?

I always respond with something like, “Yeah, a little bit here and there. It’s not easy because you’ve got to build up a lot of traffic, and that takes many years.

The conversation rarely continues on the topic of blogging after I tell them it’s hard. I can hear them internally thinking, “Oh, this poor Uber driver who’s trying to make a living as a writer. Sucks to be him!Read More

A Lifestyle Business Is The Way To Go

by in Lifestyle on Jul 16th, 2015

After publishing, Can Financial Samurai Be The Next Billion Dollar FinTech, I got a lot of feedback from readers about what I should do. After checking out the poll results and reading all the comments, I’ve come to the conclusion that a lifestyle business is absolutely the way to go!

For most of us, blogging is a fun way to connect with other folks and earn a few extra bucks. What I’ve noticed about blogs who pursue riches is that they ultimately lose their voice. Once you lose your voice, you lose your brand. And once you lose your brand, there’s no more fun because you’re simply doing everything for money. Read More

Are You Correctly Predicting The Future To Maximize Your Online Revenue?

Pick The Right Companies And Flourish

by in Lifestyle on Apr 16th, 2015

One of the big surprises to come out of blogging was not the realization that I could one day leave my full-time job in finance. That epiphany came when I received an advertising request on my iPhone while chilling at a bar on top of Santorini in the Fall of 2011.

The biggest surprise about blogging is its ability to be a dynamic resume to allow people to pivot into a new career!

One of the big reasons why I wanted to get out of the investment banking industry was because there was a loosening correlation between performance and reward. One would work harder, generate more revenue, and get paid less! That’s demoralizing. Ever since I left the banking world in 2012, there’s been report after report about how XYZ bank is downsizing its departments. I’ve also heard from old colleagues how their compensation continues to get squeezed.

Meanwhile, the consumption of online content continues to explode! Sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy have come out of nowhere with mega valuations based on aggressive funding. Meanwhile, every week a new blogger is quitting his/her job to blog full-time. I’m bullish on blogging for the next 10 years, and I just wish I started Financial Samurai in 2003 when my father first suggested the idea instead of dilly dallying until 2009.

Financial Samurai now generates enough to put food on the table, without having to aggressively sell anything, work in an office, or report to anyone. It is a dream come true, and every day I thank my lucky stars.

What I’ve discovered is that to grow your revenue online, you’ve got to make educated guesses about the future. Read More

How Important Is Social Media To Your Blog Or Business?

Maximize Your Use Of Time And Money Online

As an online media consultant for several financial technology companies, I’ve been asked to think about existing traffic acquisition strategies and figure out better ways to utilize a company’s time and money to improve returns. I love analyzing data and finding solutions to increase ROI. As a problogger, leveraging my experience building Financial Samurai over the past six years to help other companies grow their brand and traffic online makes sense.

For the longest time, I’ve had a bias AGAINST social media. Who has time to tweet, like, flip, share, and do all that? Social media seriously feels like a huge time sink if you are just a one or two person show. The only platform I really use is Twitter, and even Twitter I feel is not a very good use of my time.

Look at what happens on social media:

* You open yourself up to social flaming wars

* You create stress by always feeling you have to respond to people

* The police come and arrest you once you tell everybody on Facebook you robbed a bank

* Given Facebook’s privacy settings are so confusing, Mark Zuckerberg’s sister didn’t realize the family photo she posted on her Wall was actually accessible to more people than she thought.

* You don’t get that much traffic back to your site, unless your site is really small, or all about social

There is social media overload, and I just don’t have time to run a Facebook page, Pinterest page, Twitter feed, Google+ page, and LinkedIn page to help those sites gain traffic. Instead, I’ve focused all my time just writing content on Financial Samurai and doing the basic social media publishing, but nothing more.

But some people are rockstars at social media and I wonder if it takes a certain type of personality to always be talking about yourself and your work online. I personally get sick of hearing myself speak, which is why I’m constantly looking for other viewpoints.

Let me share with you a spreadsheet I put together on various sites’ traffic figures, social percentage, and social percentage. Let’s see if we can glean any data together. Read More

Leaving A Neuroscience PhD To Build Two Online Businesses

by in Lifestyle on Jun 9th, 2014

My name’s John Accardi. I’m 25 years old and just about 6 months ago, I withdrew from the neuroscience PhD program at Georgetown University. Not only was I on a full scholarship that paid my tuition and lab expenses, but I was receiving a generous stipend as well. So why did I drop out and how did I build 2 profitable online businesses with hardly any startup capital?

Why did I leave Georgetown?

I left for one simple reason: I didn’t like it. In the Neuroscience PhD program, I was required to attend class but the majority of my time was spent doing research at the lab bench. I was working on developing the new technology of optogenetics to treat epilepsy. I’d surgically implant fiber optic cables into the rat brain, in the attempts to alter epileptic neural networks. At times, It was cutting-edge and exciting but mostly it felt limiting. Like most jobs, I had to work for long hours in the same place with the same people, day after day. I also disliked the fact that I needed permission to take any time off, even for something as simple as a doctor’s appointment.

I started to become restless and thought of ways that I could earn a living with a more free lifestyle. I searched for different ways to work for myself and set my own hours. I also wanted the potential to earn more money. After some searching, I became excited about the idea of building an online business. It was so fascinating to me because I knew that an online business could be operated from anywhere in the world. I pictured myself at a condo in Florida, sitting by the pool while managing business from my laptop or phone. Read More

  • Untemplater: Congrats on getting so many consecutive features on Google News! That’s phenomenal! Writing on...
  • Untemplater: You nailed it. I also believe great marketing is very helpful in the beginning but it’s really...
  • Jamie: Awesome insights thanks! I’ve been a big fan of Sam’s for years. Really exciting that he’s...
  • Untemplater: There are so many overpriced ecourses online it’s crazy. They use very aggressive marketing tactics to...
  • Andy: Thousand-dollar e-courses are a total scam. You can learn everything online for free. Shame on people who sell...
  • Untemplater: There are a lot of bloggers out there who focus on small stuff like should you or should you not spend...
  • Derek: It’s fascinating how some bloggers continue to just mindlessly pump out affiliate content. It’s clear they are...
  • Untemplater: Lots of valid points! So true that bloggers are a minority of overall readership, so blogging to much...
  • Bingo: You are spot on. Most of our bloggers are white people living on the coasts, where half the population of...
  • Financial Samurai: Hi Jim – Nice to hear from you. It was too much work running Yakezie. Too many people wanted...

Help Support The Yakezie Network

Yakezie Membership Support
Yakezie.com

© 2024 Yakezie.com | All Rights Reserved

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Contact Yakezie

Personal Finance Lifestyle Writing Contest

The Yakezie is one of world's largest and most sophisticated network of personal finance and lifestyle bloggers. Through collaboration and the selfless support of others, we strive to improve the lives of every one of our visitors.

About Yakezie